Nature and Art Part 19

The contrast of the state of happiness between the two brothers was nearly resembled by that of the two cousins--the riches of young William did not render him happy, nor did the poverty of young Henry doom him to misery. His affectionate heart, as he had described in his letter to Rebecca, loved _persons_ rather than _things_; and he would not have exchanged the society of his father, nor the prospect of her hand and heart, for all the wealth and splendour of which his cousin William was the master.

He was right. Young William, though he viewed with contempt Henry's inferior state, was far less happy than he. His marriage had been the very counterpart of his father's; and having no child to create affection to his home, his study was the only relief from that domestic inc.u.mbrance called his wife; and though, by unremitting application there (joined to the influence of the potent relations of the woman he hated), he at length arrived at the summit of his ambitious desires, still they poorly repaid him for the sacrifice he had made in early life of every tender disposition.

Striding through a list of rapid advancements in the profession of the law, at the age of thirty-eight he found himself raised to a preferment such as rarely falls to the share of a man of his short experience--he found himself invested with a judge's robe; and, gratified by the exalted office, curbed more than ever that aversion which her want of charms or sympathy had produced against the partner of his honours.

While William had thus been daily rising in fortune's favour, poor Agnes had been daily sinking deeper and deeper under fortune's frowns: till at last she became a midnight wanderer through the streets of London, soliciting, or rudely demanding, money of the pa.s.sing stranger.

Sometimes, hunted by the watch, she affrighted fled from street to street, from portico to portico; and once, unknowing in her fear which way she hurried, she found her trembling knees had sunk, and her wearied head was reclined against the stately pillars that guarded William's door.

At the sudden recollection where she was, a swell of pa.s.sion, composed of horror, of anger, of despair, and love, gave reanimated strength to her failing limbs; and, regardless of her pursuer's steps, she ran to the centre of the street, and, looking up to the windows of the mansion, cried, "Ah! there he sleeps in quiet, in peace, in ease--he does not even dream of me--he does not care how the cold pierces, or how the people persecute me! He does not thank me for all the lavish love I have borne him and his child! His heart is so hard, he does not even recollect that it was he who brought me to ruin."

Had these miseries, common to the unhappy prost.i.tute, been alone the punishment of Agnes--had her crimes and sufferings ended in distress like this, her story had not perhaps been selected for a public recital; for it had been no other than the customary history of thousands of her s.e.x.

But Agnes had a destiny yet more fatal. Unhappily, she was endowed with a mind so sensibly alive to every joy, and every sorrow, to every mark of kindness, every token of severity, so liable to excess in pa.s.sion, that, once perverted, there was no degree of error from which it would revolt.

Taught by the conversation of the dissolute poor, with whom she now a.s.sociated, or by her own observation on the worldly reward of elevated villainy, she began to suspect "that dishonesty was only held a sin to secure the property of the rich; and that, to take from those who did not want, by the art of stealing, was less guilt, than to take from those who did want, by the power of the law."

By false yet seducing opinions such as these, her reason estranged from every moral and religious tie, her necessities urgent, she reluctantly accepted the proposal to mix with a band of practised sharpers and robbers, and became an accomplice in negotiating bills forged on a country banker.

But though ingenious in arguments to excuse the deed before its commission, in the act she had ever the dread of some incontrovertible statement on the other side of the question. Intimidated by this apprehension, she was the veriest bungler in her vile profession--and on the alarm of being detected, while every one of her confederates escaped and absconded, she alone was seized--was arrested for issuing notes they had fabricated, and committed to the provincial jail, about fifty miles from London, where the crime had been perpetrated, to take her trial for--life or death.

CHAPTER XL.

The day at length is come on which Agnes shall have a sight of her beloved William! She who has watched for hours near his door, to procure a glimpse of him going out, or returning home; who has walked miles to see his chariot pa.s.s: she now will behold him, and he will see her by command of the laws of their country. Those laws, which will deal with rigour towards her, are in this one instance still indulgent.

The time of the a.s.sizes, at the county town in which she is imprisoned, is arrived--the prisoners are demanded at the shire-hall--the jail doors are opened--they go in sad procession--the trumpet sounds--it speaks the arrival of the judge--and that judge is William!

The day previous to her trial, Agnes had read, in the printed calendar of the prisoners, his name as the learned justice before whom she was to appear. For a moment she forgot her perilous state in the excess of joy which the still unconquerable love she bore to him permitted her to taste even on the brink of the grave! After-reflection made her check those worldly transports, as unfit for the present solemn occasion. But alas!

to her, earth and William were so closely united that, till she forsook the one, she could never cease to think, without the contending pa.s.sions of hope, of fear, of joy, of love, of shame, and of despair, on the other.

Now fear took place of her first immoderate joy--she feared that, although much changed in person since he had seen her, and her real name now added to many an _alias_--yet she feared that same well-known glance of the eye, turn of the action, or accent of speech, might recall her to his remembrance; and at that idea shame overcame all her other sensations--for still she retained pride, in respect to _his_ opinion, to wish him not to know Agnes was that wretch she felt she was! Once a ray of hope beamed on her, "that if he knew her, he recognised her, he might possibly befriend her cause;" and life bestowed through William's friendship seemed a precious object! But again, that rigorous honour she had often heard him boast, that firmness to his word, of which she had fatal experience, taught her to know, he would not for any unproper compa.s.sion, any unmanly weakness, forfeit his oath of impartial justice.

In meditations such as these she pa.s.sed the sleepless night. When, in the morning, she was brought to the bar, and her guilty hand held up before the righteous judgment seat of William--imagination could not form two figures, or two situations more incompatible with the existence of former familiarity, than the judge and the culprit--and yet, these very persons had pa.s.sed together the most blissful moments that either ever tasted! Those hours of tender dalliance were now present to _her_ mind.

_His_ thoughts were more n.o.bly employed in his high office; nor could the haggard face, hollow eye, desponding countenance, and meagre person of the poor prisoner, once call to his memory, though her name was uttered among a list of others which she had a.s.sumed, his former youthful, lovely Agnes!

She heard herself arraigned with trembling limbs and downcast looks; and many witnesses had appeared against her before she ventured to lift her eyes up to her awful judge. She then gave one fearful glance, and discovered William, unpitying but beloved William, in every feature! It was a face she had been used to look on with delight, and a kind of absent smile of gladness now beamed on her poor wan visage.

When every witness on the part of the prosecutor had been examined, the judge addressed himself to her--"What defence have you to make?"

It was William spoke to Agnes! The sound was sweet; the voice was mild, was soft, compa.s.sionate, encouraging! It almost charmed her to a love of life!--not such a voice as when William last addressed her; when he left her undone and pregnant, vowing never to see or speak to her more.

She could have hung upon the present words for ever! She did not call to mind that this gentleness was the effect of practice, the art of his occupation: which, at times, is but a copy, by the unfeeling, from his benevolent brethren of the bench. In the present judge, tenderness was not designed for the consolation of the culprit, but for the approbation of the auditors.

There were no spectators, Agnes, by your side when last he parted from you: if there had, the awful William had been awed to marks of pity.

Stunned with the enchantment of that well-known tongue directed to her, she stood like one just petrified--all vital power seemed suspended.

Again he put the question, and with these additional sentences, tenderly and emphatically delivered--"Recollect yourself. Have you no witnesses?

No proof in your behalf?"

A dead silence followed these questions.

He then mildly, but forcibly, added--"What have you to say?"

Here a flood of tears burst from her eyes, which she fixed earnestly upon him, as if pleading for mercy, while she faintly articulated,

"Nothing, my lord."

After a short pause, he asked her, in the same forcible but benevolent tone--

"Have you no one to speak to your character?" The prisoner answered--

A second gush of tears followed this reply, for she called to mind by _whom_ her character had first been blasted.

He summed up the evidence; and every time he was compelled to press hard upon the proofs against her she shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the deadly blow; writhed under the weight of _his_ minute justice, more than from the prospect of a shameful death.

The jury consulted but a few minutes. The verdict was--

"Guilty."

She heard it with composure.

But when William placed the fatal velvet on his head, and rose to p.r.o.nounce her sentence, she started with a kind of convulsive motion; retreated a step or two back, and, lifting up her hands, with a scream exclaimed--

"Oh! not from _you_!"

The piercing shriek which accompanied these words prevented their being heard by part of the audience; and those who heard them thought little of their meaning, more than that they expressed her fear of dying.

Serene and dignified, as if no such exclamation had been uttered, William delivered the fatal speech, ending with, "Dead, dead, dead."

She fainted as he closed the period, and was carried back to prison in a swoon; while he adjourned the court to go to dinner.

CHAPTER XLI.

If, unaffected by the scene he had witnessed, William sat down to dinner with an appet.i.te, let not the reader conceive that the most distant suspicion had struck his mind of his ever having seen, much less familiarly known, the poor offender whom he had just condemned. Still this forgetfulness did not proceed from the want of memory for Agnes. In every peevish or heavy hour pa.s.sed with his wife, he was sure to think of her: yet it was self-love, rather than love of _her_, that gave rise to these thoughts: he felt the lack of female sympathy and tenderness to soften the fatigue of studious labour; to sooth a sullen, a morose disposition--he felt he wanted comfort for himself, but never once considered what were the wants of Agnes.

In the chagrin of a barren bed, he sometimes thought, too, even on the child that Agnes bore him; but whether it were male or female, whether a beggar in the streets, or dead--various and important public occupations forbade him to waste time to inquire. Yet the poor, the widow, and the orphan, frequently shared William's ostentatious bounty. He was the president of many excellent charities, gave largely, and sometimes inst.i.tuted benevolent societies for the unhappy; for he delighted to load the poor with obligations, and the rich with praise.

There are persons like him, who love to do every good but that which their immediate duty requires. There are servants who will serve every one more cheerfully than their masters; there are men who will distribute money liberally to all except their creditors; and there are wives who will love all mankind better than their husbands. Duty is a familiar word which has little effect upon an ordinary mind; and as ordinary minds make a vast majority, we have acts of generosity, valour, self-denial, and bounty, where smaller pains would const.i.tute greater virtues. Had William followed the _common_ dictates of charity; had he adopted private pity, instead of public munificence; had he cast an eye at home before he sought abroad for objects of compa.s.sion, Agnes had been preserved from an ignominious death, and he had been preserved from--_Remorse_--the tortures of which he for the first time proved, on reading a printed sheet of paper, accidentally thrown in his way, a few days after he had left the town in which he had condemned her to die.

"_March the_ 12th, 179-

"The last dying words, speech, and confession; birth, parentage, and education; life, character, and behaviour, of Agnes Primrose, who was executed this morning, between the hours of ten and twelve, pursuant to the sentence pa.s.sed upon her by the Honourable Justice Norwynne.